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Movements
  1. 01You are hereRequiem aeternamEternal restIntroit4–5 min
  2. 02You are hereKyrie eleisonLord, have mercy2.5–3 min
  3. 03You are hereDies iraeDay of wrathSequence2 min
  4. 04You are hereTuba mirumThe trumpet3–3.5 min
  5. 05You are hereRex tremendaeKing of fearful majesty2 min
  6. 06You are hereRecordareRemember5–6 min
  7. 07You are hereConfutatisThe accursed2.5 min
  8. 08You are hereLacrimosaTearful day3 min
  9. 09You are hereDomine JesuLord Jesus ChristOffertory3.5–4 min
  10. 10You are hereHostiasSacrifices and prayers4 min
  11. 11You are hereSanctusHoly1.5–2 min
  12. 12You are hereBenedictusBlessed5 min
  13. 13You are hereAgnus DeiLamb of God3–3.5 min
  14. 14You are hereLux aeternaEternal lightCommunion5–6 min
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Myth or fact25 questions about the Requiem1791Mozart's last year

Requiem aeternam · eternal rest

A prayer for those who cannot be brought back.

It is sung when words can no longer change anything, and that is exactly why each of them weighs so much.

Start with the first movementIntroit4–5 minWords and translationlive
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Words and translationlive

Pick a movement and listen for a few minutes. Watch which instruments come in and when, when the choir sings and when the soloists do, and follow the words: the text runs with the performance, already translated.

  1. 1Introit4–5 minRequiem aeternamEternal rest
  2. 2Kyrie2.5–3 minKyrie eleisonLord, have mercy
  3. 3Sequence2 minDies iraeDay of wrath
  4. 4Sequence3–3.5 minTuba mirumThe trumpet
  5. 5Sequence2 minRex tremendaeKing of fearful majesty
  6. 6Sequence5–6 minRecordareRemember
  7. 7Sequence2.5 minConfutatisThe accursed
  8. 8Sequence3 minLacrimosaTearful day
  9. 9Offertory3.5–4 minDomine JesuLord Jesus Christ
  10. 10Offertory4 minHostiasSacrifices and prayers
  11. 11Sanctus1.5–2 minSanctusHoly
  12. 12Benedictus5 minBenedictusBlessed
  13. 13Agnus Dei3–3.5 minAgnus DeiLamb of God
  14. 14Communion5–6 minLux aeternaEternal light

About this project

A Requiem you can understand the first time you hear it

Mozart's Requiem runs for fifty minutes straight, in Latin and without explanation. You hear the general mood - something grand and sad - but the words stay closed, and with them what the music is actually about.

Here we take the work apart together, movement by movement: what you are hearing, what the choir is singing about, and who is on stage at that moment. You do not need to read music - everything is explained in plain words.

The aim is simple: after these pages the Requiem should sound to you not like old church music but like a conversation about death, memory and mercy in which every word is clear. Begin with the Introitus, the first movement, or go straight to the Lacrimosa - the best known melody in the Requiem, and the last notes Mozart managed to write himself.

At a concert

If you are hearing the Requiem live, open concert mode: your phone listens along with you and shows the line being sung right now, with its translation.

Concert map

The map gathers performances our listeners attended, with photos and stories, and announcements of those to come. Been to a concert? Share it, and it will appear on the map.

Three things about this work

  1. Not a concert but a plea

    A Requiem is a Mass for the dead. The choir sings in Latin not about death, but to God on behalf of those who have died: give them rest, free them, receive them. In the 18th century this was not music for reflection but a plea on which, people believed, it depended how soon the soul of the dead would find rest. You hear it best in the Recordare: there the pleas come one after another, seven steps in a row.

  2. Sombre from the first bar

    About 50 minutes: choir, four soloists, orchestra. There are no flutes and no oboes in this orchestra - basset horns instead, soft and veiled. That is why the sound is dark from the very first note: the bright high instruments are simply not there.

  3. An argument without an answer

    One and the same prayer speaks about God in two different ways: now a judge on the day of wrath from whom nothing can be hidden, now the only one who can grant a pardon. Neither of them wins, and the whole work lives on that tension. Listen to the Dies irae and then the Recordare: in the first the choir and the whole orchestra sound fast and at full strength, in the second four soloists quietly ask Jesus to remember them.

What happened in 1791

  1. 1791ViennaMozart is 35 and has more work than time: The Magic Flute, La clemenza di Tito for Prague, the Clarinet Concerto. The Requiem has to be written in the gaps between them.
  2. JulyThe commissionIn the summer a go-between brings a commission for a Requiem Mass, with no client named. It is Count Walsegg: his wife died in February, aged 20. The count liked to buy other people's music and perform it as his own.
  3. 5 DecemberMozart diesMozart dies at about one in the morning. Only the Introitus is finished. From the Kyrie to the Hostias there are drafts: voices, bass and cues for the orchestra. For the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei there are no notes of his at all - those movements will be written later by someone else.
  4. 1792The completionConstanze needs the fee, and the client is waiting for a score. Joseph Eybler takes it on first - a Viennese composer Mozart knew and thought well of - but returns the manuscript within weeks. It is finished by Mozart's 25-year-old pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr: he writes the Lacrimosa from bar nine, adds the orchestral parts where Mozart left only the voices, and writes the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei entirely himself.
  5. 1798 → 1984The legendsPoison, “a requiem for himself”, a mysterious messenger in grey - these stories began with Constanze and the first biographers, who needed to explain an early death. The commission really was secret, but there was no ghost behind it: Count Franz von Walsegg, who bought other people's music and passed it off as his own, ordered a Requiem in memory of his dead wife and sent the money through a go-between. Salieri appeared in the story only in the 1820s, out of Viennese gossip, and Pushkin and the film Amadeus fixed him there. None of these stories is confirmed.

Where next

  1. 01Fourteen movementsFourteen movements, one after another, from the first to the last. Each has the Latin text with a translation, a virtual stage with choir and orchestra where whoever is sounding lights up, and notes on what to listen for.
  2. 02Eight barsMozart managed to write eight bars of the Lacrimosa. See the manuscript and the place where his handwriting breaks off mid-phrase.
  3. 03Was Mozart poisoned?Salieri, a secret patron, tears over the Lacrimosa. Twenty-five stories retold for two hundred years: your answer first, then the explanation with its source.
  4. 04The year 1791Mozart's last year month by month: two operas, a secret commission, letters to Constanze. You can see how much work ran at once, and what place the Requiem had in that year.

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